Americans, as a history professor told me last week, read their Constitutions like their Bibles.

Meaning ... not so much.

They take it in sips and splashes, but hardly ever plunge into the whole pool of it. They pick what they want, and ignore the rest.

It's the same with the Declaration of Independence. We might miss the import of its wholeness, sometimes. But we always recall the poetic parts. Like the Big One:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

If the Declaration is like the Bible, that's Jefferson 3:16.

I find fascinating the words the Founders capitalized throughout that document. "The Creator," of course. And "Rights." It's like they were shouting to us.

"Life."

"Liberty."

"Happiness."

It was no accident, either. An earlier draft of the Declaration did not capitalize those things. But in the final document a host of revered and reviled words -- "Laws of Nature and Nature's God," "Government," "People," "Despotism," "Tyranny," and "Fact" -- were treated as equally proper nouns.

One of the best lines of all was the simple transition between the flowery setup and America's specific statement of grievances against King George. It went like this:To prove this let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Simple. Plain. Beautiful.

How better to write, if you want to make a point to the King, and to the Ages?

On this Independence Day, 236 years later, I wonder what We capitalize.

The Creator, sure. We The People, yes. And Money, Power and Partisanship.

Or maybe just ... Freedom.

Because Freedom is what this Day is about. Certainly it's also about those men who spent lives fighting Tyranny and standing up to the awesome power of a King, who fretted over Words and Letters because they wanted to be Understood.

But Freedom is what we Want, and what we Celebrate. Even on those days when we can't Agree what it is.

What is Freedom? It's the same as it ever was.

Freedom is the right to Try to succeed, but it's no guarantee.

It's the right to Pursue happiness, but not an assurance you will attain it.

If you don't believe that, just look to old Button Gwinnett. He signed the Declaration in 1776, then went home to Georgia to pursue Happiness in politics. He invaded Florida. And he was shot dead in a duel in 1777, sapped of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Anything.

The meaning of Freedom is for Us to hammer out.

It's not a free lunch. But it's not Freedom from all Taxation or Government, either.

It is the Right to Think or Believe anything we want. It is no Right to impose that Belief on Others.

Freedom is a remarkable thing. It gives us the ability to Believe in completely different things. And to still have Faith in One America.

It is the ability to despise our Government, and still Love our Country.

It is the ability to Love our Government, and still be Patriots.

That's the brilliance of it. In Capital letters.

We Don't Have to Agree on the Meaning of Freedom at all. That, in the end, is what makes it Freedom.